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Sunday, 13 May 2012

My body fesses up to Ben Barnett

‘You’ve
got to see Ben Barnett,’ said Nicky Hughes. ‘You really have.’ She’d done a
session of Theta Healing with me, removing past blockages, re-setting my DNA
and blasting out the bit of me that believes poverty is cool and that I’m not
eminently lovable (allegedly). So, after all that, I still wasn’t clean and clear as a whistle?Sheesh, does it never end?But then I know the answer to that.We go up and up, climbing those ladders… We think we’ve reached some kind of understanding, that we’ve ‘made it’ and then…whoosh…down the
snake we go, tumbling head over heels to that bloody START square all over again.

Every
time you think you’ve ‘got it’ is the time to watch out, to be on guard. Because, or so I’ve found, that’s when you’re
in the biggest danger of all. Your ego
gets all smug and – no matter how spiritual and pure and elevated you may think
you’re being – it’s bullshit. And then,
if you’re lucky, SLAM, you trip up and slide.
You know nothing again. You’re back to being a beginner. Isn’t it wonderful? As my new favourite Buddhist Pema Chodron says, ‘To be fully alive, fully human
and completely awake is to be continually thrown out of the nest.’

Anyhow. I was in Somerset and Ben was in London. I
was broke and Ben is expensive. I figured I’d have to do without his magic. Make do and mend. But then, ka-ching, I found I was going to
London and had spare time – a lot of spare time, as it happened. And I asked a magazine I write
for if they’d like a review of his treatment and they said oooh, go on, so I
suggested a trade to Ben and he was cool about that so – there you go.

He’s
got big plans, has Ben. He has a book in
mind and would like to get his stuff out on TV.
And, you know, I think he’ll do it.
He’s good-looking, charming, talks a mile a minute and has that supreme
self-confidence that says anything is possible. He’s had celeb clients too (and yes, that
does matter if you want to get a book or TV deal nowadays) – mostly, like the
majority of good therapists, he won’t name names but Kylie has raved about him
in print so she’s good for a name check.

‘How
did you come to do massage?’ I asked, cos it always strikes me as an odd
career. He laughed. ‘I studied engineering at university, then became a
professional footballer player.’ Eh, what?
‘Who did you play for? He
laughed. ‘Barnet. Yeah, Ben Barnett for Barnet. Great, huh? I
kinda wished my Mum had had Inter Milan as her surname.’

He
didn’t want to turn into ‘an alcoholic footballer’ so, because of an interest in physiology, he took a massage course and was instantly hooked. ‘I had this sudden Aha moment
of, “Oh, okay, this is what I’m supposed
to be doing.” He had a classical
training in Swedish and remedial massage but then came across Hydrotherm which
at the time was newly developed by John Holman. It’s a water-filled segmented pad
that lies across the massage couch allowing a full body massage without the
need to lie on your back. So no nose in the hole, no pressure on the chest, no
turning over mid-stream, so to speak.
‘Being on water, you become far more aware of your body and I can also
feel far more easily where it is relaxed and where it’s being protective,’ Ben
explains, also pointing out that it’s brilliant for pregnancy and for older
people too.

It’s
fascinating stuff. Ben says that assumptions sit in the body and that often our
assumptions aren’t even current or conscious – they’re based on the past; on
our past experiences which we then turn into universal truths. ‘People often have protective responses and
that’s fine but you have to ask, is the reason for that protection current? Is
it still appropriate? Often the protective response is bigger than the pain
itself.’

Interesting.
He also firmly believes that bodies talk far louder than words and that is
something I have always believed – that we hold our history in our bones,
fascia, muscles, ligaments, skin, organs, not just in our heads. As he works, he listens to the body under his
hands – and he talks – or rather he talks on behalf of the body. ‘I found early on that I had a compulsion to
talk during treatment,’ he says. ‘Using my voice as a third hand. I just get a
very clear feeling of what needs to be said – it’s as if I’m channeling your
body.’ So, effectively, your body is talking to him and he’s just relaying it
all back to your mind. If you feel what I’m thinking.

It
was, to put it mildly, an interesting experience. If you’re unused to massage,
I’d warn that you might find it challenging. Ben – like most serious bodyworkers
- prefers to work on a totally naked body (and yes, I know that’s an issue for
a lot of people) but really, think about it…you don’t bat an eye if a doctor
wants to examine your body; and if a gynecologist asks you to spread your legs,
you don’t assume they want to give you one, do you? Do you? Yet
we get coy around people whose job is to release tension in the body. *shrug*

‘I
do work on the chest area,’ he said. ‘But I always ask people if they feel
comfortable with that or not. Generally
though, by the time I get there, people are usually so relaxed they don’t give
a damn where I work.’

His
touch is deep and assured. Usually I
tend to float off during bodywork but I became intrigued by what he was saying,
my mind puzzling at the narrative. He’d
asked me to give him two words – how I would want to feel as I left the session
and, eventually I had decided on Free and Clear. Yes, I know I said in an earlier blog that I
was going for Wild and Free but at the last minute I’d switched Clarity for
Wild as Wild had seemed a bit wanton somehow.
I told Ben and he laughed – ‘Wild may come along for the ride,’ he said.

He
also frequently reminds you to breath, something else I often forget to do and
that, too, kept me in the present, in the body, rather than wafting out into
space.

‘The
body is capable of miraculous things,’ he said. ‘This is all about using your
body to unlock the potential in your life.’

It’s
a great mix of the purely physiological and the spiritual. Psyche and soma. It’s a bit like having an
intense psychotherapy session without having to say a word, bypassing the need
for rational thought; for guarded thought.
The body doesn’t lie – it cuts straight to the chase. For years I've believed we should be moving towards this – the synthesis of talk and
touch therapies. Biodynamic therapy did it to a degree and, actually, it’s
something all good intuitive bodyworkers probably do anyhow – just without advertising it.

And
what did my body say to him? Did it
spill? Did it give up all its deep dark
dirty secrets? Hmm, yes, quite a few actually. Quite freakily so. Am I going to tell you? Hell no! Go see Ben and talk to your own
body!

But, I want my body to lie to me. And to as many others as possible. Truth is terrifying. Interesting,as ever, to read about your celebrity, by proxy, lifestyle. Incidentally, Kylie raves about me too, in another context. Have you ever considered journalism, Jane? You'd be awfully good at it.